Abstract: State-approved and -funded Jewish cultural heritage has largely focused on concrete tangible spaces or structures, such as synagogues and mikvaot (ritual baths), and material objects. They often represent and evoke an idealised, unchanging Jewishness of the past that is presumed to be acceptable to non-Jewish audiences, yet one that bears little resemblance to lived Judaism, whether past or present. Using hip-hop by Jewish subjects in Germany as a case study, with a special focus on rapper Dimitri Chpakov, this article investigates the mobilisation of popular culture in the twenty-first century by diverse Jewish subjects under the radar of state-sanctioned conceptualisations and representations. Past studies have examined Jewish hip-hop in Germany within the authorised heritage discourse around Holocaust commemoration and anti-Semitism. This article argues that Jewish hip-hop initiatives need to be explored as alternative statements of Jewish heritage, Jewish communal identity, and Jewish diversity, geared towards young living Jewish community members. Such functions tend to be ignored or misunderstood in top-down discourses perpetuated in the public sphere. This article examines the extent to which present-day German Jewish hip-hop prompts a counter-heritagisation process: by creating compelling, deeply personal, and imitable musical forms, it reimagines and reforms conventional definitions of heritage in the service of young Jews living in Germany.
Abstract: This book explores and reveals the intricacies of Jewish heritage in contemporary Germany, the role it plays as a "moral heritage" in the symbolic representation of Jews and Judaism in the national landscape, and its relevance for the cultural sustainability of local Jewish communities. The practice of synagogue music in the past and present is a central case study in the discussions. This ethnographic study examines how Jewish liturgical music as the cultural heritage of minorities has been constructed, treated, discussed, appropriated, and passed on to different actors in different forms and for different purposes over time. It also examines the resulting moral and ethical questions and power imbalances. The author discusses how both Jewish and non-Jewish stakeholders utilize the music of 19th- and early 20th-century Reform Judaism and the Minhag Ashkenaz for a symbolic reconstruction of German Jewry. Furthermore, they repatriate it in local Jewish communities today. This is usually done for individual, sometimes commercial, rather than religious reasons. The Jewish-musical cultural heritage process is characterized by moral imperatives and complex negotiations about power and representation. It reveals problematic aspects of German-Jewish relations, cross-generational rifts, and denominational differences between the Jewish communities in post-war Germany.
Abstract: This article argues that the Parisian spheres of Middle Eastern dance and Mediterranean music shape distinct Muslim-Jewish encounters for individuals involved in these practices, fostering a coexistence among artists from Muslim and Jewish backgrounds which involves carefully navigating tensions over geopolitical issues. Three key findings emerge from this study. First, respondents of Muslim and Jewish backgrounds shared a common Maghrebi heritage that was reappropriated by engaging in the practices of Middle Eastern dance and Mediterranean music. Second, these artistic encounters were not immune to instances of stigmatization and tensions, particularly relating to geopolitical issues, which reactivated symbolic boundaries between artists of Muslim and Jewish backgrounds. Third, participants employed strategies to avoid conflict, explicitly separating art from politics, and fostered mutual respect for differing perspectives. Nevertheless, some respondents politicized Muslim-Jewish commonalities, notably by reaffirming their shared Maghrebi heritage.
Abstract: As elsewhere in eastern and southern Europe, many Jewish communities in Greece were almost completely destroyed during the Holocaust, which resulted in the near erasure of many distinctive religious and cultural practices. Among these erased communities were the Romaniote Jews, an Indigenous Judeo-Greek population distinct from the Sephardic Jews who arrived in Greece following the Spanish Inquisition. The cultural losses included their musical practices, which were largely orally transmitted. A few Romaniote leaders and practitioners continue the musical-liturgical traditions today in Greece, as well as in the United States and Israel. The living practice of this musical liturgy that is ever-changing in the typical manner of orally transmitted repertoires arguably embodies a process of remembering destruction. This process is shown by the imprint of gaps in memory caused by rupture embedded in the repertoire. While remembering destruction is an intrinsically Jewish practice, it is of specific importance to the Jews of Ioannina (a city that once was, and arguably still is, the spiritual center of Romaniote Jews) and their descendants. In the past decade, an annual pilgrimage to Ioannina to attend a Romaniote Yom Kippur service has become a pivotal experience for both Romaniote Jews and others, enabling them to remember and mourn the pre-Holocaust community. This annual pilgrimage, at the epicenter of Romaniote religious and social significance, generates a new Jewish collective based on Romaniote identity and history that includes the restoration of distinct musical practices.
Abstract: Over half a century after the Holocaust, in Eastern European countries where the Jewish community remained only a small part of the population, products of Jewish culture (or what is perceived as Jewish culture), including music, have become vital components of the popular public domain. In Poland, there are festivals and concerts of Jewish music, more and more records with this music, Jewish museums, and renovated Jewish districts, with Jewish cuisine, and music that are offered to tourists visiting Poland as the main attractions. They attract enthusiastic – and often non-Jewish – crowds. I consider how non-Jews involved in this movement in Poland perceive and implement Jewish culture, why they do it, how much it involves the recovery of Jewish heritage, and how this represents the musical culture of Jews in museums and at events organized for tourists. I also consider the relation of non-Jews as a majority group to Jews as a minority group, as well as the impact of the musical actions of the former on the musical culture of the latter. The article is based on field research and observations I have made during more than twenty years, both among the remaining Jews in Poland and in mixed or non-Jewish communities where music perceived as Jewish is promoted.
Abstract: This article explores how Jews in Finland relate to the musical traditions of their synagogues and the changes that have occurred in the customs over time and as the result of various cultural and spiritual influences. Based on ethnographic data, it focuses on rituals, liturgy, and music as contexts for negotiating relationships between the institution and the individual, memory practices, and contemporary innovation – being and doing Jewish, to use concepts from the vernacular religion framework. The article outlines the historical development of Minhag Finland, the vernacular liturgical customs. It concludes that the “turn to traditions” should be stated in the plural, as several Jewish customs, cultures, and context are engaged in the negotiations around liturgy. This is not just a way to freeze time and preserve the status quo. Instead, seeking for meaningful models in the past paves the way for change – especially when turning toward a broad range of traditions.
Abstract: Gershom Scholem argued in his momentous book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941, 34) that as the traditional Hasidic way of life was extinguished by the Holocaust, the last ‘authentic’ form of Jewish mysticism came to a close: “it has become again what it was in the beginning: the esoteric wisdom of small groups of men out of touch with life and without any influence in it”. Nevertheless, practices stemming from Kabbalah and Jewish mystical sources have since the turn of the millennium become more popular than ever inside as well as outside Jewish communities in Europe and North America, relocating and reframing traditional practices for a late-modern, urban, liberal and inclusive spiritual milieu. But are such vernacular practices to be seen as ‘authentic’ continuations of the tradition, or merely as vulgar commodification? Here, the views of contemporary researchers differ significantly.
This chapter’s point of departure is this controversy over ‘authenticity’ in research on Jewish mysticism. A vernacular religion perspective is applied as a means of untying the knot that has formed through the unfruitful juxtaposing of classic and contemporary Jewish mysticism. Discourses of authenticity are exemplified by a case study dealing with contemporary practices of niggunim singing: (mainly) wordless melodies sung as a means of elevating the soul to God, repairing the world and strengthening the divine presence in the world. Niggunim is a practice with roots in Hasidic Judaism, which is currently experiencing a renaissance within contemporary Jewish spirituality. Ethnographic material has been gathered among Jews from progressive milieus in London to shed light on the practice in general, and this chapter analyses how the practitioners reflect upon authenticity.
Abstract: The term ‘cultural heritage’, as defined and developed by the UNESCO, includes oral traditions and living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants. The ways, how the understanding of this concept is put into practice is, however, often limited to visual rather than audible forms of culture, such as within the context of Jewish culture in Switzerland. Here, much effort has been put e.g. into the preservation of the tangible Jewish heritage of the two villages Endingen and Lengnau in Surbtal, but less into safeguarding of the musical traditions of these two villages. Against this background, the chapter argues to apply the concept of cultural sustainability in the study of the so-called Minhag Ashkenaz (the Western-German custom) in Swiss synagogue music. Within the context of this chapter, the concept is first of all understood as an independent and alternative concept from UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage. Thus transformed, it better represents the discursive and dynamic processes of preserving, transmitting and sharing cultural expressions – such as orally transmitted synagogue chants.
Abstract: In Frankreich, wo heute sowohl eine der größten muslimischen Bevölkerungsgruppen als auch die größte europäische jüdische Gemeinde lebt, ist seit dem Jahr 2000 bzw. seit dem Ausbruch der Zweiten Intifada vielfach die Rede von einem "neuen" Antisemitismus. Manifest wurde dieser anhand einer deutlichen Zunahme antisemitischer Vorfälle, Beschimpfungen und tätlicher Übergriffe auf jüdische Personen oder Einrichtungen, u. a. ausgehend von muslimischen Jugendlichen. Im März 2012 und im Jänner 2015 kulminierte dies in zwei antisemitisch motivierten, islamistisch-jihadistischen Mordanschlägen in Toulouse und in Paris. Diese Problematik bildet den Hintergrund der vorliegenden Dissertation, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf Quellen- und Diskursanalysen liegt: So beschäftigen sich die einzelnen Kapitel der Arbeit mit verschiedenen Diskursen um und Manifestationen von Palästina-Solidarität, Antizionismus und Antisemitismus unter MuslimInnen im zeitgenössischen Frankreich. Dies erfolgte über eine qualitative, selektive Herangehensweise, wobei jedoch zentrale Aspekte der komplexen und vielschichtigen Thematik erschlossen wurden: Nach einem Abriss zur Immigrationsgeschichte und soziopolitischen Situation von MuslimInnen in Frankreich und einer Analyse der Debatten im französischen wissenschaftlichen Diskurs zur Frage des Antisemitismus unter MuslimInnen folgen in vier Analysekapitel umfassende Detailstudien. Dies beginnt mit Ausführungen zu Palästina-Solidarität und Antizionismus seit den späten 1960er Jahren in Frankreich, mit einem Schwerpunkt auf den Pro-Gaza-Demonstrationen im Sommer 2014. Anschließend setzt sich ein zweites Kapitel mit Nachwirkungen der französischen Kolonialvergangenheit sowie mit der zeitgenössischen Erinnerungspolitik und Gedenkkultur auseinander, wobei ein besonderer Fokus auf neuen Formen von Holocaustrelativierung sowie auf Wahrnehmungen des Shoah-Gedenkens seitens muslimischer Medien und Personen liegt. Ein drittes Kapitel widmet sich der Anschlagsserie von Toulouse und Montauban im März 2012, ihrer divergenten Rezeption sowie der weiteren Entwicklung in Hinblick auf antisemitisch motivierte islamistische Anschläge. Abschließend wird in einem letzten Kapitel aufgezeigt, inwiefern und auf welche Weise sich Kritik an der französischen Kolonialvergangenheit, Palästina-Solidarität, Antizionismus und Antisemitismus in den Musiktexten französisch-muslimischer RapperInnen widerspiegeln und von dieser weitertradiert werden. Miteinbezogen wurde für diese Analysen auch eine Vielzahl an bisher nur wenig oder kaum untersuchten und erstmals ins Deutsche übertragenen Quellen - neben sozialwissenschaftlichen Publikationen zur Frage des "neuen" Antisemitismus in Frankreich und ausgewählten Artikeln der nationalen Medienberichterstattung betrifft dies insbesondere Quellen aus dem Online- sowie dem populärkulturellen Bereich. Unweigerlich ergibt sich aus diesen Diskursen ein Neben- und Gegeneinander divergierender Ansichten, Geschichtsdeutungen und Weltbilder, welche über diverse "Diskursträger" und verschiedenste "Diskursteilnehmer" getragen, verbreitet und transformiert werden. Die Dissertation nähert sich diesem "umkämpften (Kommunikations-)Raum" (Habermas), in welchem die verschiedenen thematisierten pro-palästinensischen, antizionistischen und antisemitischen Manifestationen zutage treten, analytisch an und versucht diese in ihren größeren zeitgeschichtlichen und soziopolitischen Kontext einzuordnen.
Abstract: This article is a discussion on my research that examines the social and musical aspects of orthodox women’s Rosh Chodesh groups. These groups, both past and present, are not a widespread phenomenon and have remained very much on the periphery of Jewish practices which, apart from communities based in Israel, already operate on the periphery of non-Jewish societies. As such, my research has required a broad, international focus. My discussion is largely based on groups in North America and Europe (specific locations examined include New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which is also the site for fieldwork on the relatively recent phenomenon called the ‘Partnership Minyan’). I also conducted preliminary fieldwork with the much-discussed group Women of the Wall (WoW) based in Jerusalem.
Abstract: This research offers an original contribution to the study of contemporary klezmer
music by analysing it in relation to a particular urban environment. With its origins in a
largely destroyed Eastern European Jewish culture, contemporary klezmer is both
historically-grounded and paradoxically rootless, cut loose from geographical
specificity by the internationalism of its recent revival. Seeking to counteract the
music’s modern placeless-ness, this dissertation analyses the musical and spatial means
by which klezmer has been re-rooted in the distinctive material and symbolic conditions
of today’s Berlin. The theoretical framework takes in questions of cultural identity,
music and place, authenticities of tradition and instrumental practice, to show how this
transnational and syncretic music – with few historical ties to Berlin – can be
understood in relation to the city’s particular post-reunification bricolage aesthetic and
subversively creative everyday tactics. Beginning by mapping the criss-crossing
networks of musicians and their multiple artistic perspectives, the dissertation proceeds
through an exploration of the official and unofficial spaces within which these fluid
musical practices operate, leading onto ways that the city of Berlin is made manifest in
the music itself – how the city is interpellated sonically and textually. Processes of
musical transmission and education are analysed through the filters of tradition and
pedagogical ideologies, from which my own instrument, the piano accordion, is used as
a lens through which to uncover the balance between personal expression and
historically-informed performance. The final chapter looks at the relationship between
history, Jewish identity and music in the city. It explores the resonances between the
contested discourse of memorial and present-day cultural and musical production,
discovering how at times sound and music can act as a living sonic embodiment that
speaks against the silence of historical memory
Abstract: The Jewish community of Dublin has been in existence for 400 years. Nowadays, many Dublin Jews are descended from Lithuanians who settled in Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century. Most Dublin Jews are integrated into Dublin society, yet little is known of cultural practices specific to Dublin’s Jewish community. This dissertation focuses on the practice of liturgical music in Terenure synagogue, one of Dublin’s two remaining Orthodox synagogues. While music is an integral part of all synagogue services throughout the year, the musical repertoire of the Sabbath morning service has been selected as representing the music which is most commonly experienced by practicing Orthodox Jews in Dublin. Much of the music in Dublin’s Orthodox synagogue has been retained as part of a Lithuanian oral tradition. However, the Dublin Jewish community is currently undergoing a demographic shift, owing to the emigration of Dublin-born Jews coupled with migration into Dublin of Jews from a variety of social, cultural and national backgrounds. As the profile of the Jewish community changes, there is evidence of a gradual shift in the musical tradition of the synagogue. Here there is an attempt to preserve part of the Lithuanian musical tradition for the future.
Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted among all sections of the Jewish community of Dublin in order to obtain information regarding the history, culture and identity of Dublin Jews. This has provided insight into the oral tradition which has retained the music of the Orthodox synagogue thus far. Other sources of information have included archives and further published/unpublished resources. The research has also involved recording, transcribing and analysing examples of liturgical Jewish music performed in Dublin. This has resulted in a comprehensive historical account of the Dublin Jewish community together with a discussion on Irish Jewish identity. Such material provides a background for the corpus of music which has been collected from various contributors. As well as recordings, this features six fully transcribed versions of the main sections from the Orthodox Sabbath service performed by five individuals, and a discussion on performance practice within the synagogue. It also includes examples of congregational singing which also forms a significant part of the service. Considerations are given to issues including emotion, identity, transmission, gender and the role of the congregation in the performance of music within the Orthodox synagogue of Dublin.
The findings reveal that musical performance in the synagogue assists in promoting a sense of community among those who participate. Orthodox Jewish liturgical music and the way it is disseminated whether in the synagogue or other setting also provides a link with the past, dialogue with the past being an integral part of broad Jewish culture. Prior to this, little has been documented regarding the music of the Orthodox Dublin synagogue; therefore this research provides a basis on which further study of the topic may be conducted.
